


Spiritual lost-and-found

by lilith_morgana



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Gen, Lucifer (TV) Season/Series 04, Lucifer Bingo 2019 (Lucifer TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-14
Updated: 2019-07-14
Packaged: 2020-06-28 10:27:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19810384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilith_morgana/pseuds/lilith_morgana
Summary: Ella misses God. Lucifer misses Chloe. It’s All Saints’ Day and the spiritual lost-and-found club has an informal gathering at Lux. Set during S4.





	Spiritual lost-and-found

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt “all saints” for Lucifer Bingo.
> 
> I used Banner’s Got it in you as soundtrack for this since I’m too much of a heathen to know any hymns that would fit.

  
  
She thinks of candles and hymns, the way the church is lit from within and how the light sort of reaches the painted windows like its trying to embrace them. She thinks about how she’d sit there alone surrounded by people and think about nothing but those lights, zooming out from the world and everything else. 

That peace, she can’t find it now. Not in tequila, not in drugs, definitely not in questionable one night stands with guys who use pickup lines borrowed from lame self-help books on dating. She can’t even find it in the escapist shows and movies she’d normally always turn to. It used to be so simple and she never really appreciated it back then, how easy it was. A year or so ago, she’d play an episode of _Star_ _Trek_ or _Red_ _Dwarf_ whenever she was down, sit back and wait for the sadness to melt away. Have some coffee and nerd joy over silly details that she noticed for the first time or something that makes no scientific sense whatsoever but is still presented as super plausible. Now, she turns on her favorite shows and all she can think about is _you’re alone out there in space, all alone, did you know that? You are all alone and you will all die._  
  
And it breaks her heart. Slow, quiet, day-by-day heartbreak from the one guy she had thought would never abandon her. Turns out he has. Or she has abandoned him, which is an even more chilling thought - because what if she’s _wrong_?  
  
The weirdest thing is that she had imagined she’d be able to talk to Chloe about this. Rational, reasonable Chloe who doesn’t believe in anything that can’t be analysed in a lab or documented in a case file somewhere. They’ve never really talked properly about faith before, but that’s because Ella has never wanted to gloat or preach or be some kind of evangelical creep. She imagines that they could have had this conversation, once.  
  
Emphasis on the _once_ , because now that Ella _would_ like to talk about how God is a piece of crap who deserves to be punched in the face because how could He let Charlotte Richards die like that, where _is_ He even when kids shoot each other to death in schools and when people let the planet die in pain (she’s unplugged the god-is-rainbows-and-sunshine cork now so everything rushes over her like some Old Testament flood); now that Ella wants to talk about all these _doubts_ , Chloe asks her if she believes in _angels_.  
  
_No_ , Ella wants to shout. _I wish I did but I don’t because the world is awful and people are full of bullshit._ And then she wants to cry like a baby when she thinks about what she used to believe. What she used to be, who she used to have in her life.  
  
Now, if she’s honest with herself - and once you cut ties with everything that defines you, you’re kind of left with no other option - she has _no one_. 

She thinks of candles and hymns, the way she’d be in church right now, lighting candles and singing for the dead. Instead she’s walking to the only place she can think of, the bottle - okay, two - of wine she’s had wrapping her head in a pleasant little cloud. 

She thinks of candles and hymns, services full of grace and love and open arms. 

_Lux_ in its tall glory greets her when she turns left and arrives on the street. Inside the dancers and the bartenders that have been around the longest nod when she passes by, offers greetings and smiles. 

It's a different kind of welcome for sure but at least it _is_ one. 

  
  
*

  
  
“Miss Lopez, to what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?” Lucifer looks at her from behind that ridiculously huge bar disk in his penthouse. He sounds a bit surprised but doesn’t look it, which is exactly how she remembers her previous visits here as well. Like he’s always _partly_ expecting company. “A thrilling new case, perhaps?”  
  
“Nope.” Ella braces herself against the wall near the elevator, suddenly all kinds of dizzy. The bartender downstairs had recognized her and denied her another drink, so she had moved on up here to get that rectified. “ _Not_ working. Hey, maybe I should? Musicians and artists are all 'I always make my best work on drugs, man'. Maybe it's the same for forensics!"  
  
“Hey, Ella, look out for steps,” Eve says, because of _course_ Eve is there, she should have known that. Well, either Eve or a bunch of other people doing non-saintly stuff in Lucifer’s bedroom. She sometimes forgets this part of Lucifer’s life because for long stretches of the time she’s known him it doesn’t seem to be as important to him as he makes it out to be, more like something he does out of bad habits or whatever. The guy is not exactly in a place of inner peace.  
  
Not that she would know. Or well, maybe it takes one to know one.  
  
“Look, I’m sorry. I was just out walking, you know how it is sometimes, and I didn’t know where I- anyway, I should go.” She wobbles; Eve grabs her elbow and Lucifer crosses the room as well, placing an arm around her shoulders. “You guys probably have _plans-_ ”  
  
“We do have an or-” Eve begins but Lucifer cuts her off.  
  
“Don’t worry about that, Miss Lopez. Let's get you over to the - well, maybe that chair over there in case you’re going to be sick. I’m not quite the good Samaritan if my Italian leather sofa is at stake.”  
  
His hand is firm and reassuring against her back, steering her through the room. Or well, steering is never the right word with him. He’s freakishly strong and she’s always wondered about that, because he’s also _seriously_ composed about it. Most guys who could lift you above their heads would wanna show off but he’s the opposite, holding it back until something tips him over the edge. Ella’s seen a thing of two that has felt like a movie scene and she knows for a fact that Chloe has, too, but they never really talked about it. With Lucifer there’s a lot that they never really _talked_ about. There’s this sense of borders there, lines you don’t want to cross because it might end with him disappearing out of their lives somehow. He’s so open about everything until he isn’t and those things where he _isn’t_ , well most of them just leave those alone.  
  
For all his quirks, Lucifer’s someone you don’t want to _lose_ ; he seems to have no idea about that whatsoever, which is super rare for a man with his ego but there you go, mystery of Lucifer Morningstar summed up.  
  
Now he looks down at her with that almost-brotherly-affection that typically floors her because damn if her own brothers by blood give her even half of it on a good day.  
  
“Can I get you a nice big glass of water or a Shirley Temple?” he asks, a touch of amusement wrapped around his question. “Maybe a bucket for when all this alcohol wants out of your inept human body?”  
  
“Do you have a Diet Coke?”  
  
“Of course I don’t, Miss Lopez. I'm not a child.”  
  
“Then I'll have whatever.” She takes a seat, tips her head back slightly and lets herself rest for a second.  
  
The next thing she knows she’s sitting on the couch on some kind of plastic cover, Lucifer sits besides her and Eve is gone. When Ella asks his tone is casual, like it’s nothing. Like he hasn’t just sent his whatever it is they call themselves away on a night like this.  
  
Well, Lucifer probably wouldn’t even know what today is, she corrects herself.  
  
Ella wonders if Eve minds the casualness of their plans at all, if it’s just part of the package with him. It's not really her image of Lucifer, though, he seems a pretty committed dude once his heart is in it, but maybe that's just it, that it _isn't_. In that case Eve, who's amazing and sweet and so gorgeous that Ella constantly questions her own sexuality around her, needs to put her foot down. Like, _seriously_ , girl. 

Not that Ella is a freaking beacon of sanity when it comes to this, she'd be the first to admit it. If someone would ask her. Which they don’t. 

But whatever his deal with Eve, Lucifer just looks tired all the time. Scruffy and sad and while she can guess the wounded soul thing works for him with the ladies, it's not how she thinks he _wants_ to be. Just like Chloe doesn't want to be all hard-set working overtime like a robot and Dan, well, god knows what's up with Espinoza lately but healthy it's _not_ and she’s damn sure he’d prefer something better, as well. 

"So, busy day drinking then?" Lucifer asks and nods towards the pair of glasses placed on the table in front of them. One large glass of red wine for him, one even larger glass of what she sadly suspects is plain orange juice for her. “Night’s still young so there’s always room for more. Though in your case I would suggest virgin drinks.”

"You know how it is," she says, aiming for a smile that isn't really there. She takes a gulp of juice to have something to do with her hands and... well, _face_.  
  
“Yes, well I do know.”  
  
Ella nods, trying to smile again but it gets caught in something else. 

He gives her a long, searching glance that she recognizes from work, one of those puzzled stares when he both tries to figure out the case and if there’s something in it for him and - simultaneously - what Chloe’s angle will be. Good thing he’s so clever otherwise it would be like running into a brick wall. 

“No offense, Miss Lopez but you do not look like you’re okay,” he points out.  
  
“Yeah.” She shrugs noncommittally. “No offence but neither do you.”  
  
He gives her a little smile that just looks sad. It causes a sharp twinge in her chest, like a lot of things these days. She can’t stand to see Lucifer sad, it feels wrong somehow. Or slightly dangerous. The guy is a walking self-destruct button and she’s at least ninety percent sure he doesn’t even understand that people care about him, especially not when he’s all sad and broody. Or at least not how much. There had been a collection at the precinct for him and Chloe after what went down with Pierce and Ella had seen the basket that went to Lux with like a billion flowers and almost as much delicacies. Dan had been against it, said that a guy like Lucifer probably has free access to all the luxuries a man can possibly ask for, just snapping his fingers. Foie gras in his fridge, blood of virgins in his morning cocktail, dollar bills to wipe his ass. And while Ella is the first to admit that the guy who sits beside her now has more than a little Eccentric Billionaire to his persona, she’s never actually been bothered by it.  
  
Other aspects of him, now, she can’t say the same for those.  
  
A flash of irritation hits her mid-thought and she frowns, stares out the ginormous windows instead. It’s not fair that she had tried to care for him that month when he came in every day to ask for Chloe, she had really _tried_ and Lucifer had been a _wall_. It’s not fair that she should just spill her guts here now when she gets nothing in return for it. They had all needed each other. She had needed _them,_ or even just the opportunity to be there for someone.  
  
Just some regular check-ups, a few chats, maybe even drinks with Chloe and the others from the supposed tribe. But everyone had sort of scattered; shown up for work, had some coffee and said pointless things like _shame about Charlotte, can you believe what Pierce tried to pull_ and dived back into their cases. Ella, too. But she had wanted more, had needed better. She had needed someone like Lucifer.  
  
“Are you angry with me?” he asks now to her surprise because even if he’s often spot-on, he doesn’t seem to be interested in long-winded talks. Except with Chloe, Ella assumes. A lot of things are different with Chloe. “Did I do something to upset you?”  
  
Ella leans forward, then back again. She sighs.  
  
“Do you even know - I mean, I know you’re all done with religion and all that rebellious stuff you have going on, but-” She watches his face, studies the shadows in it through her decreasing blur. “ _Today_. Do you even know what today _is_ for normal people?”  
  
Lucifer gives her a long glance before nodding. “All Saints’ Day, Miss Lopez. Why do you ask?”  
  
“Because… I don’t know. It’s just stupid.” Her hand rakes through her hair that falls out of her ponytail and over her glasses. She had barely remembered to put on pants on her way out, let alone get rid of her gigantic glasses that keep sliding down on the bridge of her nose. “Forget it.”  
  
“You miss church,” he says then, his voice unexpectedly gentle. “And today reminds you of what you have lost.”  
  
“Yeah.” Ella nods. Her throat feels thick and useless. The stupid pattern of her pants look even worse when drunk, all purple and _twirly_ , like she’s still a teenager. Now that’s she’s outgrown everything else, maybe she ought to outgrow her ridiculous wardrobe as well, start dressing like… like Charlotte Richards.  
  
The name burns in her mind. When she glances sideways, Lucifer is looking straight at her with that disturbingly kind gaze that she spots on occasion. It lands with a _thud_ in her chest, making her regret indirectly calling him abnormal before.  
  
“I know it sounds crazy, right, but I miss talking to Him, too. I used to do that. Like, a _lot_. Felt so right, like we had this connection - I could just talk about my day, you know. Tell Him about work and you guys and -” She shakes her head, biting back a frustrated sound at her own inability to just shut _up_ about this. Out of sight out of mind obviously doesn’t work for her; she picks up her necklace every day at work, staring at it and then putting it back in the drawer again. Pathetic. “You think I’m a religious nut and I probably am. Or was.”  
  
“I would never think that.”  
  
“ _Ha_! You’re hands down the _judgiest_ person I know when it comes to religion, bud.”  
  
“ _Really_?” He looks genuinely shocked to hear her words and Ella thinks about that gap in him, that crack where things stop making sense and other options sort of crawl in. Whispers or ghosts, telling her that she should look closer, open her eyes, open her heart. Some days she is even ready to believe in his method acting stitch because him being the Devil would be more logical than him being… well, Lucifer. "I mean, I do hate charlatans and organised religion are full of those but other than that, Miss Lopez, I am all for people doing what they want. Even if it’s _faith_.”  
  
His overly sarcastic voice and the smile that tells her he’s trying to cheer her up make the corners of her mouth curl, too, she has to give him that.  
  
“I miss the Big Guy,” she says, finally. There’s a little gasp inside her as she lets it out, as the words leaving a void in there. The one she’s been filling with alcohol lately. “I just… _really_ miss Him.”  
  
She holds Lucifer’s gaze for a second too long, not sure what she expects him to answer. Once, right after everything went to hell, he had said that it was the God's loss if she dumped him and she had found it reassuring to hear then. Reassuring and _weird_ coming from him. But then the memory of him beside her in church that one time he had been dragged there had resurfaced - resurfaces again _now_ \- and she had recalled how still he had been, how the expression on his face had altered subtly over the course of the service. Above all he had been _silent_ , which she had never thought he could be. Afterwards he had taken her out for Mexican food and more tequila than a human body can handle and it had been the best evening in forever. Kind of like the opposite to this one, sitting in his home all passive-aggressive and still, by the way, embarrassingly _drunk_.  
  
“I… do understand that feeling,” he says, voice low and soft. “Better, I think, than you can imagine.”  
  
Lucifer downs his drink and pours himself another one. She wishes she could chug down booze like him but it doesn’t seem to ever make him drunk. Another one for the pile of weird inconsistencies that she will chart one day, maybe tomorrow when the hangover will keep her from pretty much everything else and her brain will keep twisting and turning.  
  
“I’m really scared, you know? Going to church again.”  
  
“Why is that?”  
  
“Just - I keep thinking if I go there and I will start hearing him again, right? Get back into it. And… yeah, that would be totally awesome. If God wasn’t just a lie.” She laughs bitterly at her own comment. “So if I go again, I’m terrified that I would just get that proof, you know?”  
  
“Proof of what, that God doesn’t exist?”  
  
She nods, mostly to the carpet below her feet. Probably a very expensive carpet. She wonders what he’ll say if she spills orange juice on it.  
  
“Oh, Miss Lopez. _Ella_.” Lucifer scoots closer to her on the couch, putting an arm around her shoulders. Instinctively she leans in and rests her head against his chest. His scent is warm and spicy, soft touches of tobacco and wine and he’s just such a solid presence that she wants to cry. She doesn’t. She sits quietly in his embrace and thinks about being in each other’s paths, being each other’s _proof_. Yeah, super deep and everything but her head spins. Once she considered Ray-Ray proof that God didn’t want her to feel as alone as she was - then for a while she thought that if God _really_ wanted good things for Ella He wouldn’t give her a ghost-friend to make her even more awkward than she already was.  
  
Lucifer clears his throat. “Do you need company for a… service?”  
  
“Company to church? Aw, _bud_.” Ella grins into his shirt. “I _knew_ you didn’t have such a bad time.”  
  
“At this point in my existence I’d probably be turned into a pillar of salt if I stepped inside, but that would not stop me. Well, technically it would, I suppose.” He chuckles darkly at his own joke. “Probably for the best, too. Anyway, consider it a favor you can cash in on in the future, eh?”  
  
“What about you then?” she asks before even thinking about it. “Tit for tat and all of that? Oh, hey that rhymes.”  
  
“Yes, well,.” Lucifer looks down at her, his face looking less serious than it had when she first arrived. Like something’s thawed. “Someone very wise and currently very drunk once taught me that favors are about faith. And the whole point of them is that they are for free. Isn’t that correct?”  
  
“Uh-huh.”  
  
The edge of the night comes closer, she can tell by the difference in the light outside. Normal people can’t, she assumes but she’s always had an eye for weird details. Like Lucifer, in a way. Yawning, she is made aware that she’s still leaning against him and that he’s still holding her with an unexpected intensity mirroring his hugs - reluctant on the surface, heartfelt once he’s getting into it.   
  
He shifts a little, which makes her sit up straight. She misses his body warmth, has begun to feel that familiar chill in her bones. Here comes hangover town crashing down. So typical that the booze has begun to wear off already, she thinks with an inward groan, she’s getting too accustomed for it to have those sweet, sweet effects. Maybe she should ask Lucifer for advice about drugs at some point.  
  
“So tell me, is it just _The Cabin_ that catches your fancy or are you up for some riveting reruns of _Bones_ , by any chance?” he asks. “I have both Doritos and Häagen-Dasz.”

Ella feels her mood take an upward turn at his words. 

"Aw, you really _do_ pay attention! I mean you _look_ like you are but then I tell myself you're probably zooming out thinking about strippers or something"

"Exotic dancers," he corrects her, without reproach. 

"Right, whatever you prefer."

"No, no, I mean we don't _say_ strippers. It's pejorative."

"Oh. Right. Yeah." That flash of warmth again, the sisterly affection. “My bad.”

"And sometimes I do that,” he admits. “But only when you talk science, or get too detailed about tissue or exit wounds."

She grins. "You and Decker really don't appreciate exit wounds enough."

There’s a soft scoff coming from him, a rumble through the air. And there she goes rambling about Chloe, too. Scratching the back of her head, she looks up at Lucifer again.  
  
“Sorry, bud, I shouldn’t - I mean, I know you two- just forget I brought her up, okay?”  
  
He pats her hand on the couch. “Doritos or Häagen-Dazs or both, Miss Lopez?”  
  
“Uh, both.” She nods, grateful that he’s dropped the topic altogether. “Definitely both.”  
  
“Now that’s the way I like it.” 

Hours later, after a few not so thrilling and a couple of really very decently-scripted episodes of what appears to be Lucifer’s favorite show, Ella lies wrapped in a ridiculously soft blanket, propped up by huge pillows and feels like something out of the Roman empire. When she cracks a joke about it Lucifer claims the Romans were not much for blankets. 

“Whatever, dude.” She yawns loudly, stretching out to reach for her cell phone.  
  
“Let’s watch another, shall we?” It’s a rhetorical question, she realizes from the look on Lucifer’s face. He’s chilling in the other end of the couch, looking uncharacteristically relaxed even in his suit; a few buttons are undone and he’s messed up his hair. Now this look, Ella has to admit, this look she can see why Chloe is _all_ about. 

She barely registers what happens in the following episode; the one after that could be about aliens and goats for all that she cares. But it’s a _good_ haze. A warm, comfortable cocoon of light and sugar, interlaced with Lucifer’s laughs and stray commentary and she feels better than she has in a long time. 

Just as she drifts off into sleep she remembers that she wanted to tell him something, that she wanted to be allowed to care for him in return.  
  
“I see the light in you, you know. Even when you’re… going through stuff.” She tucks the blanket tighter around her arms and shoulders. “The light doesn’t go out.”  
  
Then she thinks she can hear him - feel a hand on her hair - before her own exhaustion catches her at long last.  
  
“Thank you.”  
  
She wakes up to the smell of caffeine and bagels, to the sun falling in crisscross patterns over her body on the couch and Lucifer muttering something to himself as he carries a tray to the coffee table. 

“Good morning, Miss Lopez,” he says brightly.  
  
And it kind of is. 


End file.
